On 12 October 2015, Flanders remembers WW1 heroine Edith Cavell, who was executed by the Germans for her part in arranging the escape of wounded French and British soldiers during WW1.
Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy James Hamilton Laurence will visit Belgium on 11- 12 October to commemorate the centenary and will be joined by Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Belgium.
They will attend a ceremony at the Belgian Senate at the location of Edith Cavell’s trial and sentencing. A contemporary bust of Edith Cavell designed by Belgian sculptress Natalie Lambert will be unveiled by Princess Astrid. The bust will be located in Park Montjoie in Uccle which adjoins Edith Cavell Road and is close to the Edith Cavell hospital. A century later, tributes to her memory, bravery and spirit live on.
Cavell was key in arranging the safe passage of soldiers from northern France via her hospital in Brussels to the Netherlands. With the help of other volunteers, Cavell made it possible for at least 200 people to escape the war zone between November 2014 and July 2015. Betrayal by informers and her insistence to tell the truth, ultimately led to her arrest and subsequent execution by the Germans. 

The daughter of a vicar, Edith Cavell was born in Swardeston, a small village, north of Norfolk, on 4 Dec 1865. As a young woman she had a governess job in Brussels and after a brief return to England, returned to become the Director of Belgium’s first nurse training school in 1907. 

The association of Edith Cavell with Salford is perhaps not that well known. In September 1906 she took up a three month temporary position at the Manchester and Salford Sick Poor and Private Nursing Institution at one of the Queen’s District Nursing Homes.

In addition to the naming of Cavell Way in Pendleton, Salford, she is commemorated on the War Memorial in the church grounds of the Sacred Trinity Church in Salford, alongside the names of those who fell in the Salford Pals Regiment. One of the most unusual pieces of local history about Edith Cavell to emerge was in 2002 when a man who runs a skip hire company rescued a bronze plaque from a Trafford based scrap yard where it was about to be melted down. The plaque now sits proudly on his sideboard. Presumably the plaque was previously attached to the nursing home she worked at in Salford.

 Her arrest and eventual execution by the Germans came as a shock to the public, as it was thought that a woman would never be sentenced to death. Her incarceration was spent hooded and in solitary confinement and was allowed no visitors or a lawyer until close to her trial. 

After being sentenced, her execution took place the next day on October 12th 1915, despite unsuccessful pleas of clemency. Her death was met with widespread protest and the publicity around her execution led to many volunteering to join the war. The first Geneva Convention 1864 guaranteed protection to medical personnel in wartime but the Germans applied a different interpretation of this law.

 Stamps, postcards and posters of Edith were used in propaganda against the Germans and her status as a brave heroine, helped pave the way to a more cautious approach to female prisoners by the German occupiers. Edith Cavell’s body was brought back to the UK and she was buried with full national honours.

An influential and brave woman, Cavell inspired many hospitals, streets, schools and institutions to be named after and in Brussels, there are many monuments and dedicated to her memory. The singer Edith Piaff, born two months after Cavell’s death was named after her. Edith was of course not the only notable female involved in World War One. 

Other British heroines also include Mairi Chislhom and Elsie Knocker, also known as the Angels of Pervijze. Having joined the British medical corps in August 1914, Mairi started a medical station and proved to be an excellent driver of large ambulance vehicles, which were very difficult to manoeuvre. Elsie came up with a revolutionary plan to treat Belgian soldiers in first aid stations near the German trenches in Pervijze – an idea that saved many lives. 

During periods of rest and recuperation in England, they gave lectures in order to raise funds for medical equipment. An exhibition about their work in the area is open to the public in Diksmuide’s Yser Museum.

Queen Elisabeth of Belgium was another notable female during the Great War. After fleeing to the coastal resort of De Panne, the Queen of Belgium set up a large Red Cross Hospital which treated more than 24,000 wounded soldiers. 

Her friend Marie Curie and daughter Irene, came to her aid and helped organise mobile radiological units at the Front. They were instrumental in helping organise early x-ray equipment for troops wounded with metal objects. Ironically, she died from Leukaemia following a protracted exposure to radioactivity.

Others include, Käthe Kollowitz, the mother of a German soldier who enlisted but tragically died at Essen near Diksmuide at 18 years. Kollowitz sculpted a series of statues in memory of her loss. And her “Grieving Parents” statue still stands beside her son Peter’s grave at the German military cemetary at Vladslo in West Flanders. Her work inspired by social justice can be seen at the renovated Käthe Kollowitz Museum in Koelelare.

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